C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. Threats
Back to thy punishment, False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings, Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue Thy ling’ring.
Milton.
1 I pr’ythee take thy fingers from my throat; Sir, though I am not splenetive and rash, Yet have I something in me dangerous, Which let thy wiseness fear: away thy hand.
Shakespeare.
2 For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl; He that stirs next to carve for his own rage, Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.
Shakespeare.
3 Set hills on hills betwixt me and the man That utters this, and I will scale them all; And from the utmost top fall on his neck, Like thunder from a cloud.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
4 Hence, Horrible villain! or I’ll spurn thine eyes Like balls before me; I’ll unhair thy head; Thou shalt be whipt with wire, and stew’d in brine, Smarting in ling’ring pickle.
Shakespeare.
5 Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; sit you down, And let me wring your heart: for so I shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not braz’d it so, That it be proof and bulwark against sense.
Shakespeare.
6 I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.Machiavelli.
7 Stand there, damn’d meddling villain, and be silent; For if thou utt’rest but a single word, A cough or hem, to cross me in my speech, I’ll send thy cursed spirit from the earth, To bellow with the damn’d!
Joanna Baillie.
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